Hard Magic
Laura Anne Gilman
WELCOME TO PRIVATE PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS A handpicked team trained to solve crimes the regular police can’t touch – crimes of magic My name’s Bonnie Torres. Recent college graduate, magic user and severely unemployed. Until I got a call out of nowhere to interview for a job I hadn’t applied for. It seemed too good to be true but I needed the work…Two days later I’m a Private Paranormal Investigator – me and Nick, Sharon, Nifty and Pietr. Five twenty-somethings, thrown into an entirely new career in forensic magic, answerable only to the evidence, the truth. The first job we get is a high-profile case – proving that the deaths of two Talents were murder, not suicide.Worse, there are people who want us to close up shop and go away. We’re sniffing out things they need to keep buried. Looks as if this job is going to get interesting. The only problem is, we’re making it up as we go along…
Praise for laura anne gilman
Staying Dead “An entertaining, fast-paced thriller set in a world where cell phones and computers exist uneasily with magic and a couple of engaging and highly talented rogues solve crimes while trying not to commit too many of their own” —Locus
Curse the Dark “With an atmosphere reminiscent of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose by way of Sam Spade, Gilman’s second Wren Valere adventure … features fast-paced action, wisecracking dialogue, and a pair of strong, appealing heroes.” —Library Journal
Bring It On “Ripping good urban fantasy, fast-paced and filled with an exciting blend of mystery and magic … this is a paranormal romance for those who normally avoid romance, and the entire series is worth checking out.” —SF Site
Burning Bridges “This fourth book in Gilman’s engaging series delivers … Wren and Sergei’s relationship, as usual, is wonderfully written. As their relationship moves in an unexpected direction, it makes perfect sense—and leaves the reader on the edge of her seat for the next book.” —RT Book Reviews, 4 stars
Free Fall “An intelligent and utterly gripping fantasy thriller, by far the best of the Retrievers series to date” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Blood from Stone “Extreme fun, nicely balanced with dark stuff … and a scene in a museum that had me whimpering with joy” —Green Man Review
About the Author
LAURA ANNE GILMAN took the plunge into murky writing waters in 1994 when she sold her first short story. Four media tie-in novels and a respectable number of short story sales later, she made the move to full-time writer in 2003. She is the author of the Cosa Nostradamus books for LUNA Books (the “Retrievers” and “Paranormal Scene Investigations” urban fantasy series), a young adult fantasy series for Pocket, and more than thirty shorter works of science fiction, fantasy and horror. She also writes paranormal romance as Anne Leonard. Laura Anne lives in New York City. You can contact her at LAG@lauraanne gilman.net, or find her online at suricattus.livejournal.com and www.lauraannegilman.net.
Hard Magic
Laura Anne
Gilman
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
Sometimes the most colourful characters are the ones you don’t plan for. When Bonnie Torres first appeared in the Retrievers series, she was a walk-on character, a bit player.
Bonnie, though, wasn’t having any of it. She insisted on playing a larger part, becoming part of the ongoing story. And then, when I paused for breath, she insisted on getting her own story, “Illumination” in the anthology Unusual Suspects. And then she demanded the chance to tell her own adventure—and that of her fellow PUPIs, the Private, Unaffliated Paranormal Investigators of the Cosa Nostradamus.
New York City’s a tough place for a twentysomething Talent to make her mark. But I suspect Bonnie’s up to it….
Laura Anne Gilman
For Sioux. Who else?
You might say that it all started with a phone call, that morning in my hotel room. Only it didn’t, not really. The wheels of my life were in motion long before then. Before the first murders, before the first job. Before I had ever heard of PUPI: before there was a PUPI for anyone to hear of. Before all hell broke loose, and the Cosa Nostradamus was almost destroyed …
For me it started years earlier, when I was still in college, and my dad had gone missing for the last time, with just a cryptic letter left behind, and with a stranger listening in on my thoughts. That was when my life changed, when everything that was to come, began.
But I didn’t make the connection, not then, and not for a while later.
I’m better at putting the pieces together, now. I have to be.
It’s what I’m trained to do.
The world changes.
If you’re lucky, you know it’s happening.
If you’re really lucky, you know you’re part of it.
This is my part.
prologue
The second body wasn’t quite dead yet. The eyes stared up; not asking questions, just staring. The killer was tempted to finish the job, but instead focused on adding the final touches to the scene. It was almost perfect … and yet, something remained undone. Something felt off.
Outside, a car passed down the street, its engine clearly needing a tune-up. The noise made the killer scowl; why didn’t people take better care of their tools? That idiot was going to find himself by the side of the road, his car overheated at best, at worst….
Contrary to what they show on television and movies, cars don’t catch fire easily. They’re designed better than that, even the older vehicles. It takes serious effort to blow one up: pouring on accelerant, or explosives …
Or magic.
The killer paused, fingers curled around the car’s door-latch, and thought about that, humming over the possibilities. The idea of the car going up in flames was pleasing. It would burn hot, blue and white. The flames would rise up from the upholstery, lick at the roof, fill the entire garage and, if the fire-fighters didn’t arrive soon enough, take the entire house with it. Easy enough to accomplish: just a controlled match of current, and a single directed thought.
Pleasing, and satisfying, that thought. Artistic, even. A fitting end to the entire matter.
But it would also draw too much attention. This wasn’t about headlines, or media coverage. The fewer people who noticed, in fact, the better. And fire might spread, injure others. That wasn’t the plan, either.
So, regretfully, the car was left intact and unscorched, the two bodies arranged in the front seat as though they’d just come home from an evening away, and simply forgotten to get out of the car.
The killer did not wear a watch, but there was a sense of valuable time passing, seconds ticking away and the window of opportunity closing. Setting everything up had taken exactly the time allotted in the plan, but the woman had fought harder than expected, losing a shoe in the process, and disposal had made more of a mess than expected. That was unacceptable.
Using a plastic garbage bag taken from the workbench, the debris was quickly packed away, and the last traces of struggle tidied up. Pack it in, pack it out, the killer thought without any sense of irony. Sorting through what was normal trash and what might carry identifiable trace was too difficult to judge: everything visible had to be considered potentially incriminating, even if nobody ever investigated. That was the hallmark of success.
Within minutes the garage was clean and peaceful again, a proper abode for the gleaming chrome beast stalled within. The attached mini mansion had never been disturbed; there would be no evidence found there.
There were no last looks, no photographs taken for posterity. It was done. Lights were turned out, the door closed, and silence claimed the space.
Inside the garage, the second body stirred, death held at bay a few seconds more. Vision gone, the fingers spread as though searching for something beside it on the car seat, stilling inches away from its goal—the already cooling hand of the other figure slumped in the passenger seat.
one
The dream was back. It always came back when I was stressed.
The site was deserted; I sneaked through the fence and into the house. Lucky for me the alarms hadn’t been turned on yet.
As usual, my brain was telling me that it was only a memory; that I already knew what I would find, that it was okay for my heart to stop pounding so fast, but the dream was in control.
The door called to me. I could feel it, practically singing in the rain-filled dusk. My flashlight skittered across the floor, allowing me to pick my way around piles of trash and debris. No tools left out; the carpenter’s daughter approved.
“Hello, beauty,” I said to the door. Or maybe to the woman in the door: in the darkness, in the beam of light, she was nakedly apparent now, a sweet-eyed woman who gazed out into the bare bones of the room with approval and fondness.
